Endling
by SnakeFeathers
Summary: end·ling /end -ling/ "The last person, animal, or other individual in a lineage, species, or subspecies, which therefore becomes extinct upon its death." The Voltron Paladins have passed and their Lions had come to collect them, all except for Shiro, who waits at the end of his life with Allura, hoping that the Black Lion will choose him again at his end. [post-canon/s7 spoilers]


Towards the end, he'd made peace with the fact that the Black Lion wouldn't come for him, that the Black Lion wouldn't mourn him, as she and the other Lions had mourned the others when they passed. He knew her mind better than his own, especially in his waning years when time began to blur and his senses started to fail, but his long life had been full of contradictions so far; what was one more, at the end? After all, he'd expected to die first, decades ago, in combat or in illness, yet there he was, the last of the human Paladins.

An endling in more ways than one.

It seemed a lifetime ago—maybe it _was_ a lifetime ago—when Voltron and its Paladins were last called upon. The Lions had lingered after the final confrontations, as if to see if the last vestiges of the Galra Empire were finally, finally defeated, before they disappeared one, by one, by one. Peace had settled, uneasily at first, across the stars and propagated under the careful cultivation of the Coalition and the resurging Altean presence until, for the first time in millennia, beings across the universe were free to grow old and die gently.

The morning that Shiro knew would be his last was uneventful, quiet and peaceful and remarkable only in the way Allura passively mentioned that the moon lingered in the sky well past daybreak. Something in his heart felt out of place, a quiet realization that these hours were his last somehow pushing through his body's myriad other discomforts he'd grown complacent with. The air was cool and laden with fog, the moisture heavy against his cheeks and dampening his clothes. His joints ached even if it brightened his spirit. His presence was welcomed across countless planets but he'd remained on Earth, with Allura and the Garrison, after stepping down from captaining the ATLAS.

The memory was bittersweet but crystal clear in his mind; the ATLAS was no Lion, but she had a personality, a life of her own that was similar yet completely different. Bright and youthful, perhaps, compared to the restrained, ancient souls of the Lions. Shiro and Allura spent decades aboard the ship, spreading diplomacy and peace, and the ATLAS had filled his mind with her tethered curiosity and warmth. He missed her, but he knew she would be well looked after under Matt Holt's seasoned command. He was almost as old as Shiro himself now but time, and technology, had been much kinder to his health. A small part of him wished to say goodbye to both the ship and her captain but he swallowed it down. They were galaxies away, and what was one soul's passing in the end.

Despite having known his health was finally fading, he hadn't expected to greet the coming end so calmly. He didn't know what would happen to him, having died before and existing now as something not quite human, but it didn't scare him. Heaven and Hell didn't exist the same way anymore after living on the Astral Plane and after learning of the cyclical nature of quintessence. He would die and his quintessence would be scattered and made into something new, in this reality or another. It wasn't an end, really, but it was hard to conceptualize such things sometimes.

The sky was cloudless, brilliantly blue, and the moon hovered silently overhead. Shiro sat facing the endless sandy expanse, having memorized every detail in the past decades. His sight had started to fail years ago, but he knew this patch of land well enough to recognize it even blind. If he could still ride he would have taken a hoverbike out and traced he and Keith's winding route through the foothills, would have stopped at the small, forgotten shack that had been swallowed to the roof by sand. He'd always meant to dig it free but time slipped away until he wasn't physically able to do much more than watch the dunes move in to bury he and Keith's earliest memories, before he could no longer do even that.

He missed Keith. He missed them all, but Keith's loss had never fully healed, still bled in his chest like shrapnel. The Blades had taken hold of the last remnants of the Galra Empire and saw to it that history would never repeat itself. Under Krolia and Kolivan's guiding hands the remaining Galra had integrated into the galactic populations and, like the countless species the Empire had severed from their home planets, found new places to take root to grow families, cultures. Their mastery of terraforming allowed barren planets to teem with life, and under the stewardship of the Blade of Marmora the small pockets of Galra grew to draw their pride from sources other than bloodshed and combat.

Keith had made it his goal to see the Blades reformed and the Galra properly integrated into the Coalition. He'd done a fine job of it, and became a leader of the Blade of Marmora alongside his mother and Kolivan all before his thirtieth birthday. Shiro couldn't have been more proud of him. So his fate at the hands of illness stung more than he ever could have imagined, as it should have been him to die young, not Keith. _Never_ Keith.

A defect of his hybrid nature was what Krolia told him, that his human half just didn't have the ability to adapt to the longevity of his Galra genetics as he grew; the same awful truth that had crushed Allura and Shiro's own attempts to start a family after the war. It happened quickly, with little pain, but without any chance for a treatment. Keith had been one in an astronomical number just to exist. He'd lived to see the dawn of a new age for the universe for both halves of his heritage, before his body gave out from under him in a cascade of organ failure just shy of his fortieth year. Shiro hadn't been there, had been away in the Austarian galaxy with the ATLAS, and when he returned to whispers of the Red Lion and found Krolia more broken than he'd ever seen her, clutching the blade that'd once been her own, he knew what had happened.

It haunted him still. Keith had saved him so many times only for him to die without Shiro even getting a chance to be at his side. The Red Lion had reappeared, seemingly from nowhere, hovering above the Blade of Marmora's headquarters when he drew his last breaths in Krolia's arms. Krolia told him, later, after the wound of his loss started to heal, that Keith knew the Lion was there before any of the scanners did, that she had come to take him, and to let her. And Krolia did, even if it destroyed her to let her son go after she swore she never would again, and watched the Lion vanish into the heart of the blue star. That was when Shiro, and the rest of the Paladins, knew that the Lions were waiting for them at their ends.

At least, that's what Shiro had believed until he was the last human Paladin left.

Hunk spent much of his time on the Balmera, so when the Yellow Lion came for him next Shiro didn't know until the Lion was long gone. He still kept in touch with Shay, but Hunk's loss had been a blow to her; Balmerans were so long-lived, longer even than Alteans, that it must have felt like she'd only had him for the briefest of times. Lance had lived a long, happy life after the fall of the Empire surrounded by his family on Earth. When the Blue Lion came for him she brought rain at her heels, and disappeared with her Paladin into the seas Lance so loved. She never resurfaced, and not a single sign of her had been seen since.

Shiro had hoped that Pidge would outlive him. He hoped that she was still alive, that she'd live long past him, but no one knew exactly where she went. She had stayed with her family for several years before they all joined to aid the Coalition, but then she had disappeared on one of her solo scouting trips from the ATLAS; the last time anyone had had contact with her was over six years ago and hope had grown dim. She'd dropped off the grid several times in the past but never for so long. He hoped nothing had happened to her and that she was safe in some far-off star system, gray and happy and deep in research, but it was impossible to tell.

Krolia still lived, and likely would for a good while yet. After Keith's passing she and Shiro grew close, taking comfort in each other's company and shared experiences from the war. The last time he'd seen her, before his sight fully vanished, her hair and short fur had just started to silver. They both knew Shiro's time was drawing to a close; they'd said their goodbyes months, maybe even years, ago. There was an unspoken understanding that Krolia, although no stranger to heartbreak and loss, would crumple under seeing the last human family she had, her last link to her son, wither and die. Shiro understood and in a way it made it easier; Krolia would carry the memory of him as a Paladin, as a friend, as _family_ , with her for the rest of her days instead of as he was now, sick, blind, and frail.

Allura remained, of course; he knew she would have centuries more before her time came. She was only now starting to show the beginnings of age, wrinkles and laughter lines barely creasing her skin. Shiro suspected that his own strange longevity was due to the crystal in his arm, or because of what Black and Allura had done to keep him alive. He stopped actively counting the years after he realized he wasn't aging like a human and let them pass unbidden while he remained at Allura's side directing Coalition matters from Earth. He didn't even know what he looked like anymore now that his sight was gone, but he could feel how much lighter he'd become, and feel how prominent his bones were under his skin when Allura touched him. They'd long come to the understanding that she would outlive him, even with the rapidly evolving technology springing up around them, and made peace with it. He loved her and she loved him, and they spent as much of their days together as they could.

The Alteans of Lotor's former colony scattered through the stars, but many, no strangers to destruction and loss, had settled on Earth to help rebuild and transform it into the new capital of the Coalition. Allura had her people back, safe and happy, and her joy was something Shiro treasured immensely. He hoped she wouldn't mourn him for long, that she would find new love in her life in the future. She deserved to be nothing but happy after all of the sacrifices she made to save the universe.

Shiro knew that Allura was aware of his impending death, and it both eased and pained him. He'd kissed her good morning and good luck after she'd prepared herself for a diplomatic meeting with the Olkari before he went outside, but he could sense her at his back and turned to face her. He couldn't see her but it didn't matter, he knew she was there, and she crossed the space between them in a heartbeat to put her hand on his shoulder. She lingered in his space, eyes locked on his own clouded ones. Ever since she saved him and harbored his soul, he knew he could never keep a secret from her again. So he didn't. But he didn't need to tell her anything, as the gentle hands that closed over his own spoke more than words ever could.

"Do you want me to stay?" her voice was barely above a whisper, and Shiro didn't need to see to know that her expression had shattered all to pieces. He wanted to tell her yes, tell her no, but couldn't bring himself to say anything about it at all.

"I—I don't know when, or if—if she'll come. She didn't come for Zarkon, or for Keith, and I haven't heard her since I woke up in this body." He tried to keep his voice from shaking, but whether it was fear, sadness or something else that got to him, he didn't know, "she hasn't been seen in so long. When they left, everyone could still feel them, somewhere. Even you, you felt Blue before she took Lance, and you still feel the White Lion. But I don't feel anything, Allura. I can't feel _anything_ of her."

He felt her grip on his hand tighten, knew she was leaning close even before her lips gently touched his own. He'd forgone the prosthetic years ago, the empty sleeve of his uniform pinned up to his shoulder, and for a moment he wished he still had it if only to properly hold her hands. The crystal that powered it had instead sat against his chest, held in a delicate silver chain, for the last several years. He clutched it in his hand now and let it slip through his fingers, pooling into Allura's hands. It was her last link to her family and now their memories together, his life, would be tied to it as well. He could only hope it brought her joy instead of sorrow.

"Takashi, its alright. She'll come," Allura murmured reassuringly, "when I pulled you from her I could feel how much she loved you. She loved you more than anything she'd ever known. She loved you— _loves_ —you, as I love you; forever and always."

"I'm sorry, Allura. I love you—" Her hand tugged gently at his shoulder until he was pulled into her embrace, a chaste kiss pressed to his cheek before her face slotted against his neck. Even after a thousand times it still felt like the first time, like he was coming home. He swallowed around the heartbreak in his throat as the reality that this was likely the last time he would get to hold her set in fully. "I don't want to be alone."

 _no, not alone, my Own_

The voice sang through his nerves and he gasped involuntarily; Allura jolted as if she heard it as well, hands going to his shoulders to steady him. He knew that voice anywhere. Even when he had forgotten himself he had known her voice. The spark at the back of his mind kindled into a fire, filling the void as if she had never left. He felt the Black Lion's love for him pour into him fully, how she never wished to make him feel so alone, that she'd wanted him back more than anything. He felt her grief and her loneliness and longing, how she _missed_ him. He understood not through words but through her heart that reaffirming their bond would have killed him, would have torn him away from the world of the living far before his time. She had known he was not to be hers again so soon, that the universe needed him more, but now he belonged to her once again; the Lions picked their pilots, and she would choose him again, here at his end.

Allura brushed his hair from his face, her grin wide but heartbroken and eyes filled with tears. Shiro blinked and realized he could _see_ her, actually see her, his vision rimmed with a familiar gold halo. He could see and hear her as if he was experiencing it for the first time, as if he was a Lion himself. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen after so long lost in the endless dark of his blindness, and if it was to be the last thing he ever saw, he would cherish it.

The sky flashed and the clouds parted, the Black Lion gliding silently down with her wings spread wide. The air around her shimmered with the heat of re-entry into the atmosphere, the sand at her paws melting to glass as she dropped to the ground before them with barely a sound. She bowed and brought her muzzle to him, purring gently as he reached for her and pressed his right—his _right_ hand—to her nose; despite the heat radiating from her metal body he felt no pain, just her cool, familiar armor. His body was flickering, incorporeal, outlined with the violet aura he knew to be his quintessence; his physical form suddenly vanished in a cloud of glimmering light but this time there was no pain, just a sense of relief as though he could finally breathe. He turned to Allura in shock; he no longer felt his own weight or the pains of his body, aware only of Allura's grip on his left hand and the thrumming pulse of the cosmos through Black's touch. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

"I love you." Allura spoke for him, her voice cracking as his hand dissolved into light and slipped through her fingers, "I always have and I always will. I will find you again." The world went dark, then, and when he woke after a heartbeat he was seeing through Black's eyes. Allura was so small from here, so fragile, but he felt the Black Lion's purr of reassurance rumble through him. She didn't speak in words but instead showed him the White Lion, resting in his place in Oriande, patiently waiting for when he, too, would come for his Paladin. He felt White's heart and his power, and knew nothing would ever hurt Allura until time decided to reunite them again at her end.

The Black Lion lifted her head and roared, fanning her wings before she rose into the sky, Shiro watching as the ground grew small and featureless through the Lion's eyes. The world looked so beautiful through her eyes, the quintessence of every living thing shimmering and dancing as if overjoyed to simply _be_. She circled over Allura once, twice; her wings glowing blindingly before she wraithed out of existence, leaving nothing but the scorched sand and Allura as a testament to her presence. Just as the others, the Black Lion came for her Paladin and left just as quickly.

When the glow faded from her wings the Lion came to a slow stop in the endless expanse of space, surrounded by countless stars and constellations. He'd almost forgotten how beautiful the universe could be. A ripple brushed over Black's flank as quintessence solidified into form, the Red Lion gleaming proudly and purring a greeting to them both; a welcome, an apology, delight and sorrow all at once. Keith's presence, still so familiar even after decades and lifetimes separated, filled the bleeding wound in his chest with the same warmth he'd exuded in life.

 _We missed you_

Shiro could see the shining forms of the other Lions materializing out of the ether, and feel the other Paladins reaching out to him through their quintessence, as joyous and alive as their Lions.


End file.
